oppn parties News Content Generators Must Be Paid By Aggregators Like Google And Facebook

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court questions the continuing relevance of two-child norms. The Court observed that falling fertility rates have weakened the population-control rationale behind laws disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting local body elections. It referred the issue to a larger Bench for consideration
  • Supreme Court declines to shift Tirupati laddu case outside Andhra Pradesh. The Court rejected a plea seeking transfer of the trial, despite arguments that political statements by Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister could affect the fairness of proceedings
  • Supreme Court transfers Azam Khan's fresh ED bail plea to Allahabad High Court. The apex court declined to consider the Samajwadi Party leader's bail request in a fresh Enforcement Directorate case and directed that it be listed before a division Bench of the High Court on November 16
  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
  • Sensex and Nifty post their strongest single-day gains in months. The Sensex surged 2,008.61 points, or 2.60%, to close at 79,310.01, while the Nifty 50 climbed 576 points, or 2.40%, to 24,536.60. Financial and automobile stocks led the rally, supported by falling crude prices and renewed foreign investor buying
  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
  • Tanvi Patri reaches Youth Olympics badminton final. The 15-year-old defeated Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe in the semi-final, assuring India of a medal and becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the girls' singles final at the Youth Olympics
  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
  • India beat Japan 4-1 to win a record sixth Asian Champions Trophy. India recovered from an early deficit to defeat Japan in the final at Mohali, extending its record as the tournament's most successful men's team
  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
Stock markets on fire due to US results, Sensex gains 2008 points to reach its highest level in 8 months
oppn parties
News Content Generators Must Be Paid By Aggregators Like Google And Facebook

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2020-06-28 20:44:55

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

In a development that bodes well for news content generators all over the world, internet behemoth Google has decided to pay news content entities to carry "high quality" content in Australia, Brazil and Germany. The decision is not by choice or accident. Several countries, France and Australia being the pioneers, have either enacted laws to make it mandatory for aggregators like Google and Facebook to share advertising revenue with content generators or are thinking along those lines. Google knows, and Facebook and others will soon follow this lead, that it cannot digest the whole advertising pie without having to invest in news gathering or without having to pay entities that do so.

It takes just a few clicks to upload ready-made content on an aggregator site. But it takes massive investment, the toil of many reporters, the intelligence of many editors and the mind of many designers to make that content ready for publication. News content generators should receive a justifiable share of the revenue generated when aggregators get readers and advertising revenue by carrying this content. It will not suffice to claim that they are giving the content a wider reach through their captive and registered users. Since the Indian media is huge in size and content is generated in many languages and these aggregators carry it in almost all languages on their platforms, India should be included in the list of countries where aggregators will pay for content, and at the earliest.

And what is with this high-quality content thing? Aggregators have a screening policy in place through which they select publications and then select the content they carry. In that sense, it is already high quality. Hence, instead of trying to create confusion, aggregators must pay for all content that they carry on their platforms. Obviously, the terms will vary according to the engagement the content receives but there should be a base rate of payment and bonuses if it goes viral. Aggregators must realize that they cannot get everything for free. If they do not, then the government should follow other countries and make it mandatory for them to pay content generators by enacting a law and enforcing it strictly. News media is under tremendous pressure. While costs have escalated, revenue has dipped. The pandemic has worsened the situation. Internet companies that generate huge revenue by carrying content generated by media companies must share it with them.